False Start
by Running Up Fawn
Summary: Don't you see, don't you see, that the charade is over?"


Author: Lauren / Running Up Fawn

Title: False Start

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, and the summary is borrowed from Dashboard Confessional's _Best Deceptions_.

Author's Note: I want to apologize in advance if this doesn't resemble sense in any way, shape or form. AYNOHYEB-post ep (sort of). Jordan, so much love and thanks for the beta and encouragement. Everyone at Maple Street…thank you for being so freaking awesome.

The last numbers she'd seen as she left for the night were the blinking green digits on the clock in the unit - 9:47, her silent goodbye.

Ten minutes to the subway, and on the crowded ride she overheard the time whispered, "9:59".

The clock in her apartment would read 10:04, though, set five minutes fast because Samantha Spade liked being ahead of the game.

Little things, like showing up first to work, like doing whatever was needed to chase down a lead, like staying late in order to exhaust every possible trail; all legitimate actions, and the compulsive need for the slight head start they provided dug at Samantha like an obsessive, insatiable itch.

They didn't go unnoticed, and she supposed that's why she wasn't surprised when Farrell added another means of advancement to her repertoire: screwing the boss.

The apartment was still as she slipped through the door, darkness punctured only by the bright red, steady numbers on her digital clock; 10:36.

Sinking against the wall, knees pulled to her chest and encircled by her arms, Samantha leaned her head back, pressing it firmly to the hard plaster as she bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut against the flood rushing forward. Every muscle, every nerve was tensed, her body merely a solid shell of defenses desperately trying to block out the agony of the day, even as memories played of their own accord through her mind, clips and phrases raining upon her harder than any physical blow she'd ever received.

The main focus of Farrell's question had, of course, been Jack. Still, the insinuation was crystal clear. 'Sleeping her way to the top...' Samantha could hear the accusing whispers, see the disapproving stares, feel the weight of pointed, uncomfortable silences even as she sat alone on the floor in the dark.

"_No, we haven't_."

The interrogator so often, picking up on lies and avoidances and half-truths, Samantha wondered now how she had fared in her own lie. Had her voice risen, increasing in pitch as her heart rate rose and the steady beat drummed harder? Had her words, snapped and sharp, been too quick, too vehement, too pronounced? Had her eyes, cold and unwavering, held too much anger, too much fire to be overlooked?

And had her eyes and voice given her away a second time that day? Had her casual question and nod of acceptance been ultimately voided by her desperate need for his touch, his warmth, his strength...

His love.

Too fast, too soon, too hard...it wasn't ever supposed to be about love, and yet she'd moved a fraction of a second too quickly, stepped over a line she never knew she was dying to cross.

Samantha tried to hide behind firm eyes and a rigid mouth, tried to pretend that even if it was true, she was just an ambitious female agent doing everything possible to make her way up the FBI's male-dominated ladder.

Farrell might have been fooled by the cliché, but Jack...Jack knew.

He'd seen her false start, felt her stumble forward, and watched as she fell, oblivious to the plummet herself until it was too late.

He caught her with gentle words and soft touches, but it didn't matter.

She was disqualified, she was out, she was over.

He said so.

Even as her clock, running the way she used to, five minutes ahead of everyone and everything else, turned from 10:59 to 11:00, Samantha stayed where she was--curled against the hard, unforgiving plaster in her blackened, silent apartment.

She could move, but what was the point? Her race, the only one that mattered, the pursuit of feeling and depth and a requited love so powerful, so shocking in its intensity that it threatened to overwhelm her entire being—the most important race she never knew she'd entered had ended before it began.  In her quick mind, in her quietly aching heart, she'd always be here—sidelined and alone.

[end]


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